Should We Talk About Evil?

RIP Alex Jeffrey Pretti.

This is not a theological post. It is a post that may drift alongside some theological concepts. (I guess you can take the pastor out of the church, but you can’t take the church out of the pastor.)

So, I’ve seen the word ‘evil’ being used a lot these days, especially now after this latest shocking murder by out-of-control federal agents, and I want to unpack a few things related to the use of that word and what I see are some dangers associated with it.

But first let me tell you a story about a Jesuit priest and theologian named Jon Sobrino, a Spaniard living and teaching in El Salvador. When I was a student at Trinity Lutheran Seminary in Bexley, Ohio, Fr. Jon came and spent several days with us, teaching and preaching and basically hanging around talking and visiting with us. Liberation Theology was beginning to be seriously taught and examined in seminaries. The political situations across Central America were dire, with civil wars and unrest and with death squads and cruelly repressive governments.

In El Salvador in particular, a brutal civil war had been raging, leading to danger and instability for thousands of El Salvadorans. In 1980, the Roman Catholic Archbishop Oscar Romero, an outspoken critic of the government, had been assassinated as he was celebrating Mass, sending shock waves through the whole continent and around the world.

Fr. Jon Sobrino taught in San Salvador at the University of Central America, which he helped found. He lived on campus there with six other Jesuits, and their housekeeper and her sixteen-year-old daughter. He and his brothers were strongly vocal in their support of a resolution to end the war, unambiguous about their critique of the government, and like Archbishop Romero adamant about their commitment to the poor. This made them perceived enemies of the state.

In November of 1989 Fr. Jon left El Salvador for a brief time to visit family in Spain. It was while he was away that members of the El Salvadoran military broke in and murdered all six priests as well as the housekeeper and her daughter, mutilating the bodies to instill terror and to send a message. If Fr. Jon had been there, he would have been killed, too.

I remember the day I sat in class with him as he spoke about his profound grief, and about the horrors of that act and so many other acts perpetrated by the government, and someone used the word ‘evil’, and he did not disagree, not exactly and not right away.

He did, however, invite us to think more cautiously, to go beyond the label and consider what he called ‘anti-mercy’, a force that is, he said, obviously at work in the world.

Over the years, I’ve often thought of Fr. Jon’s reframing of a word and a concept that can be super-charged and weaponized by anyone, and to appreciate how carefully he took it and handed it back to us, not watered down but reframed, widened, and deepened.

He also straightforwardly warned us against naïveté, impressing on us his certainty there is something in the world that actively works against mercy and goodness, that intends to undo its effects. I’ve revisited Fr. Jon’s comments often, and I think he’s right. Is it a power unto itself? Is it the product of group energy? There’s more to get into and a conversation for another day.

I think the problem with the word ‘evil’ is that it clouds the issues for me, but when I put it in Fr. Sobrino’s terms of, “What is pushing back against the work of mercy?” then I see clearly.

I look at the actions of this administration and can only say, it has obviously and intentionally set itself against what is merciful and kind, what is compassionate and just, against what is right and good to do for the people of this country, especially for those who are the most vulnerable. It sanctions federal agents killing at will. It turns a deaf ear to the cries of husbands and wives, it uses small children as bait without the slightest thought or care for their safety. It has done all this in the naked pursuit of raw power and obscene amounts of wealth. It is the path they’ve chosen, and while saying “Jesus” and “God” and shouting about being “a Christian nation,” (spoiler: we’re not and were never intended to be) they’ve turned 180 degrees from the teachings and mandates of the faith they’re so nauseatingly vocal about, and anyone who cares to look can see it.

But I do want to be careful about my language.

When I was serving as a pastor in Centerville, Ohio, some religious wingnuts somewhere decided that Cincinnati-based Proctor & Gamble’s logo was actually a satanic symbol. It was the early 1990s, a sort of heyday for Satan among those who eagerly and excitedly looked for him everywhere. Boycotts ensued, and the screeching grew so loud about the company’s ‘evil’ that P&G finally changed their logo. After the P&G fiasco, the devil hunters turned to look for more. It was a warning sign of the stupidity that was to and indeed has come.

I guess what I’m saying is, when we go looking for ‘evil’ we can find it anywhere, and while in these truly terrible times the difference between what is right and what is wrong is so sharply clear it cuts, the label of evil is dehumanizing, no matter who is using it.

And I don’t want to dehumanize anyone. In fact, I want to humanize more. I want people to be fully and completely accountable to their own humanity. No one should get off so easily by simply being dismissed as evil. They should have to stand in their full humanity and account for their actions. No excuses.

I feel like my thoughts are incomplete today, when my emotions are roiling and fury boils, but it’s what I have at the moment.

Love is, of course, the antidote to anti-mercy. Love is more powerful than anything in the universe. It’s the only thing that can overcome without destroying. It’s fierce and it’s feral and it sacrifices its own safety and well-being for the sake of the other. It’s a verb, not a feeling or opinion. It’s got marching feet and a hoarse voice from crying out for justice and it thrives on collective action and it’s only getting stronger.

Anti-mercy, built on weakness and fear, is always unmasked for what it is. Sooner or later, the illusions disintegrate and all the systemic lying catches up.

The tide is turning.